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China news tagged with: redevelopment (39)

• China Developer’s Lament

  

  As part of a Forbes special on the billionaires of the world, Gady Epstein profiles real estate developer Zhang Xin, chief executive of Soho China:

  This is the Chinese economy in a nutshell–sellers selling a product for which there’s no natural demand, buyers buying whether they need it or not. In a market boosted by government-directed lending, both sellers and buyers have been getting only more ambitious and frenzied.

  For the seller, at least, this is perfectly rational. To not get in while the economy is hot means missing easy profits. Even as Zhang the Cambridge-educated leftist argues the real estate bubble is disserving the nation, Zhang the Wall Street-trained executive can argue reasonably that not participating in it would be disserving her shareholders. Sales at Soho China nearly doubled last year to $2 billion.

  As Zhang wonders where her country is heading, the tycoon is at the peak of her capitalist career, 15 years after she cofounded the company that became Soho. Fifteen years from now, will Soho China’s many skyscrapers in the Beijing’s skyline be admired? Or will they be scorned as icons of short-cut capitalism, built cheaply and sold for piles of cash to mining magnates and corrupt officials?

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  • March 10, 2010 2:38 PM

• Beijing Artists Say Development is Driving Them Out

  

  In the Guardian, Tania Branigan has more details about the recent protest by artists forced out of their studios in Beijing:

  The demolitions in Chaoyang district are only the latest of many. One person whose studio is threatened has been evicted four times already.

  The artists say that some of them signed contracts for periods of up to 30 years and had spent a lot on improving the studios but had been in the Zhengyang and 008 zones for a matter of months before their landlords said the developers were moving in.

  The group said that several of them had stayed at the sites on Sunday night because of concerns that people would try to demolish them overnight.

  At 2am, about 100 men wearing black coats and white masks and armed with wooden and iron bars descended on the Zhengyang art zone, they said.

  With his head wrapped in a blood-spotted bandage, Liu Yi described how a man grabbed his mobile phone as he rang the police. “When I tried to get it back, he got four or five people with sticks and iron bars to beat me. I fell down and he got other guys to watch over me so I couldn’t get away.”

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  • February 24, 2010 10:30 PM

• Hire Stands Up to Chinese Government, Developers

  

  Voice of America has an update to this CDT post from December on live-in protester Lu Daren, who was hired by the managers of the “Fish Castle” restaurant to prevent its destruction by wrecking crews:

  Unidentified men came by and roughed Lu up, leaving him bruised and bleeding. He says he and his boss thought violence was possible.

  Lu says his boss gave him accidental life insurance and also agreed to pay a settlement on top of his salary if something unexpected happens… The Fish Castle issue was resolved, after a month-long standoff. Both parties agreed to discuss higher compensation.  Lu was paid for his work, but the end of that job may be the beginning of a new career.

  Lu says he is certain that in the near future, there will still be a need for the kind of services he provides.  He says the nail house problem is leftover from history and will still exist because the government has not taken steps to resolve it.

  Businessmen have contacted Lu about starting a company offering anti-demolition services. Chinese media reports also say a film director is interested in telling his story.

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  • February 18, 2010 11:44 AM

• New Rules Seek to Ease China Property Disputes

  

  Disputes over forced evictions as land gets sold for redevelopment have resulted in violent protests in recent years throughout China. New rules may give homeowners more rights and help ease tensions, Reuters reports:

  With China’s feverish real estate market stoking developer appetite for land, existing guidelines allowing local governments to confiscate homes and claim land have drawn demands for change, which could eventually slow demolitions.

  Property disputes in a country where the government legally controls all land can lead to rowdy protests, fights with police, imprisonment and even suicide.

  According to a set of State Council Legislative Affairs rules pending review through February 12, anyone losing land should be paid market value, while demolition disputes should go to court and lawsuits should settle contract violations.

  Chinese facing removal have long complained that the amount of compensation offered is far below the real value of their homes. Some allege that officials collude with developers to demand land in the name of public needs, such as roads, then turn it over to commercial investors who can reap big profits.

  Strong-arm tactics should also be forbidden, they say.

  Read more about forced evictions and land rights via CDT.

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  • January 29, 2010 1:10 PM

• Roger Cohen: A Woman Burns

  

  New York Times columnist Roger Cohen visited Chengdu and met with Tang Huiqin, the older sister of Tang Fuzhen, who set herself on fire to protest the demolition of her family’s house and beatings of her family members by the local demolition squad:

  “They were beating me, beating me, and I could hear my younger sister, on the highest part of the roof, screaming ‘Older sister, older brother, have you been beaten to death?’” Tang, 53, told me. “I could hear her voice but I had blacked out from the beating and could not speak.”

  We were seated in the courtyard of Tang’s simple home, adjacent to her sister’s house, now reduced to rubble. Chickens strutted about. Tang had just emerged from the hospital. A large reddish scar cut across her forehead. She was nervous. It can be dangerous in China to speak out, to speak truth to power. Tang stood up and raised her shirt to reveal severe bruising all down her left flank.

  Tears filled her eyes. She averted them. Her younger sister was called Tang Fuzhen. She’s dead now.

  On that day, Nov. 13, as Tang Fuzhen yelled at the demolition brutes to stop the violence against her siblings, as she pleaded with them to leave her house intact, she doused herself three times in gasoline, saying she would set herself on fire, right there on the roof, if the beating of her family continued.

  The blows continued to rain down and the self-immolation of Tang Fuzhen, 47, was added to the long list of victims of explosive Chinese development.

  Read more about Tang Fuzhen here.

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  • January 26, 2010 11:24 AM

• Doomed China Restaurant Hires Live-in Protester

  

  The managers of a restaurant in Beijing marked for demolition have hired a man, Lu Daren, whom they advertised for on the internet, to protest the restaurant’s destruction:

  “I’m tired,” the 46-year-old (Lu Daren) said Thursday, after a long night of fending off the latest visit from what he suspects were hired thugs by the landlord. “Tired, tired, tired.” He stays — wrapped in blankets, reading the newspaper or writing idle poetry, occasionally taking short walks_ because he thinks the restaurateurs have been treated unfairly.

  China has struggled for years with the issue of forced evictions. But some say the violent protests against forced evictions have increased this year, as a massive government stimulus plan has made loans for construction easier. Under law, land seizures are meant to be for public interest projects, but angry citizens have protested evictions meant to make way for shopping malls and luxury apartments… The landlord turned off the water and power at Fish Castle Restaurant Bar nearly a month ago. For the past two days, dozens of men the restaurateurs suspect were sent by the landlord have tried to pull Lu out of the building, along with people squatting in two neighboring restaurants. A shopping center with apartments is planned in their place… Lu says he worked for a demolition company for years in northern Shanxi province and saw abuses on both sides. Some residents would use the evictions as an opportunity to extract high compensation, he said. On the other hand, companies like his sometimes used violence to force people off the land.

  He said he remembers watching a woman in neighboring Hebei province get crushed by a wrecking machine several years ago as she tried to defend her home. “There was no time to stop, it was too sudden,” Lu said. She later died at a hospital

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  • December 24, 2009 12:44 PM

• Photography: The Landscape Within

  

  Howard French, former New York Times Shanghai bureau chief, spent the summer documenting through photographs the people who live in Shanghai’s disappearing neighborhoods. He wrote an essay about the project for the Times earlier this month. He has now posted many of his photos on his website, together with an essay titled “The Landscape Within“:

  Some of the neighborhoods where I did my early photography have already been demolished and in some cases already rebuilt, their old inhabitants long since scattered.

  Fragments of other neighborhoods barely cling to existence, meanwhile, like doomed convicts, knowing the end is near.
  I returned to Shanghai last summer to re-enter this world, with a feeling I’ve had each time I’ve returned from an absence of more than a few weeks — that this was perhaps the last time.

  Asked how he chose his subjects, Paul Strand, the great early 20th century photographer had this simple reply: “They choose me.” And so it has been for me with Shanghai. Beyond this, in such matters there are no ready-made answers.

  One knows what one feels, though, and one thing I can never forget is the thrill of walking and of engaging my mind’s eye in a world where so much of life seems to be lived in the open; where everything appears to be constantly on display.

  The photographs can be viewed here.

  Listen to a CDT podcast interview with French from 2007.

  » Read more
  • September 13, 2009 9:28 PM

• More About the Chongqing Temple Predicament

  

  On her blog Inside-Out China, Xujun Eberlain provides more information about the commercial development that is threatening a 1,000-year-old temple in Chongqing:

  So, whatever the real reasons were behind the Hot Spring Temple’s protest, the case has already raised another important issue (in addition to the religious property rights I mentioned in the previous post): the legitimacy of the government’s role in controlling religious affairs. If this issue is not resolved, more conflicts will surely ensue. The unenlightened Yu aside, it is time for the Chinese government to adjust its religious policy.

  In the current situation, religious personnel are like a daughter-in-law with no husband but having multiple bossy (and sometimes even abusive) mothers-in-law: there’s the Committee for Ethnic and Religious Affairs from the government line (市政府民宗委); there’s the United Front Work Department from the Party line (市委统战部); there’s the Subcommittee for Ethnic and Religious Affairs from the Political Consultative Conference line (政协民宗委); there’s also the government-controlled “mass organization” – Buddhist Association (佛协). What a big mess. Do the solitude-seeking monks really need this many mothers-in-law? And, when there is a conflict like this one, none of them help.

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  • May 7, 2009 9:33 PM

• Proposed West Lake Tallest Building to Cut Height by a Third

  

  The Hangzhou government has made a big move to cut into the bottom line of real estate tycoons who were intent on building the highest building around the scenic West Lake. Translated by CDT from People Online via sina.com:

  West Lake has been the beacon of beauty in Hangzhou for centuries, written about in endless poems and legends. And now in a booming China, pretty bodies of water like this have also become a hot commodity for real estate developers. No wonder when the old 72-meter building on the former Zhejiang University campus was demolished in January last year to make way for new developments, Hong Kong’s Kerry Group proposed to build a taller hotel complex, 85 meters tall, that will become the lake’s highest spot in its vicinity, and probably the most expensive building.

  Recently, Hangzhou’s party secretary Wang Guoping said no to this plan. He figured that the height of this new building interferes with the beauty of this lake environment and buildings around it. “Kerry building will be shortened to 56 meters,” he said in a meeting, which according to industry analysts will mean hundreds of millions of yuan in losses to the developer.

  Kerry Group bought the land from Zhejiang University for 2.46 billion yuan and drew its plan to erect a 85-meter five-star Shangri-la hotel, a 63-meter office tower and two 60-meter up-scale apartment buildings. The city’s top official’s late decision could easily cut into the bottom line of the Hong Kong developer. At a reserved rate of 50,000 yuan/square meter on this complex, a 1/3 height loss in the building will shrink 17,000 square meters or 8.5 billion yuan in revenues.

  A quite decent move by a local government, especially when it comes to saying no to tycoons with stacks of big cash.

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  • August 3, 2008 5:16 PM

• Defiant Beijing Family Loses Home

  

  Another nail house has been pounded to the ground, this time in Beijing. From the BBC:

  Bedecked with posters, slogans and flags, the city-centre shack had been attracting attention from neighbours and passers-by.

  The Yu family were refusing to move because they said the compensation being offered was far too low.

  It was not immediately clear where the family is now living. Family members were not answering their phones.

  Later, the local government admitted it had taken matters into its own hands after negotiations with the Yu’s broke down.

  “Because they had unreasonable requests and refused to relocate… they were forcibly moved,” said a statement posted on a government-run website.

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  • July 18, 2008 8:31 PM

• Villagers Fight for Land in Rapidly Developing China

  

  NPR’s All Things Considered reporters Melissa Block and Robert Siegel are still in Chengdu, where they were stationed to prepare for a week of broadcasts, before the earthquake struck. They are broadcasting a three part series on people who live outside the city limits of Chengdu. For more on their reporting on the quake’s aftermath, read the reporters’ blog here:

  In the final report, NPR’s Robert Siegel profiles a group of people who didn’t move at all: They stayed in the country, and the city came to them.

  Their collective farm has been cleared and paved over to make way for high-rise apartments.

  Their experience has been a catastrophe, just outside the Third Ring Road.

  » Read more
  • May 21, 2008 10:24 PM

• China Says Farmland Is for Cultivation – Henry Sanderson

  

  More on the increasingly heated debate over land use in China, from AP:

  China stressed Thursday that farmland should be used for cultivation, not gobbled up by construction as the country’s rapid development pushes further into the countryside.

  In a front-page article in the People’s Daily newspaper, the Communist Party mouthpiece, said the State Council — China’s Cabinet — issued an announcement urging cities to stop using rural land for development.

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  • January 10, 2008 9:34 PM

• Chongqing Plants Mansions on Public Green Spaces – The Beijing News

  

  Translated by CDT from the Beijing News:

  Hutouyan (虎头岩) is a tourist spot known for facing the Jialing River (嘉陵江). Surrounded by sky-piercing trees and natural vegetation, it not only boasts a hilltop view over the river and the city, but also has enormous commercial value. And a real estate developer has built out many luxurious villas on the hilltop, asking 30-50 million yuan for each unit, all over 1,000 square meters. The most pricey one sells for more than 100 million yuan and you will need to produce a financial certificate of more than 10 million yuan to visit as a potential buyer. Nearly 70% of the houses have been sold.

  But this has drawn criticism from local residents and environmentalists. “The state reiterates over and over again that we shouldn’t build mansions on tourist spots, but it’s a widespread phenomenon here in Chongqing to see tourist spots and urban public green spaces being taken over by luxurious developments,” said Wu Dengming (吴登明), a Chongqing environmental group head. At Hutouyan alone, there are multiple developments, as the reporter learned. Other encroached places include: Mt. Jinyun (缙云山), Mt. Zhongliang (中梁山) and Mt. Tongluo (铜锣山). As a result, the green spaces for the general public are shrinking as the real estate booms. [Full Text in Chinese]

  Video here

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  • January 10, 2008 7:11 PM

• Real Estate Boom Encroaches on Nearby Farms, and the Law – the Beijing News

  

  If you don’t have a multimillion bank account but still want to afford a villa near some major Chinese city, you still have a shot in Chongqing. Read about a real estate rush into nearby rural neighborhoods, translated by CDT from the Beijing News:

  Wei Erxu (韦尔旭), a tangerine and fish farmer at Jiulongpo District (九龙坡区) near Chongqing City, finds himself fighting against a local government that wants to dislocate villagers on a plot of 1,000-mu farmland to profit from a leasing deal with a developer of villas. His tangerine trees were poisoned in February 2003, because he refused to move. And his wife worries that their small fish pond will face the same fate.

  He didn’t know what the land deal would amount to. Now he understands, passing through a gate to the soon-to-be-completed community of urban rich every day, he is aware that his fellow villagers have signed on, unwittingly, to surrender their land to enrich local officials and the developer, all of whom are risking an illegitimate land-leasing practice to build properties by taking advantage of land that was inked as “farmland.”

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  • December 16, 2007 8:29 PM

• Tired of Living Between Heaven and Hell – John Garnaut and Maya Li

  

  The Age looks at the destruction of historic Harbin:

  THE cluttered beauty of this old Harbin courtyard apartment compound exists only in a photograph. The homes burnt down four years ago, along with more than 30 residents, in a story that never made it past the city’s news censors. The offending coal stove was said to be near a snow-covered wood pile in the foreground.

  The compound is just one of scores that survive only in the slide boxes and digital photo files of a quietly passionate urban historian, Li Ye. For most of his adult life, Mr Li has been “preserving the history” of Harbin so his 15-year-old daughter may connect with the place they have both grown up in. [Full text]

  [Image: Picturesque but impractical . . . snow covers the courtyard of one of the old apartments in the area known as the Inferno, in Harbin, by Li Ye via SMH]

  » Read more
  • December 15, 2007 6:10 PM

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